The Word “Democracy”
The word democracy is of Greek origin. It was the ancient Greeks who first began to reflect on the concepts of power and authority and who defined forms of social organization. Thus emerged the concepts of monarchy (rule by one), oligarchy (rule by a small group), and democracy (literally, “rule of the people”).
The Athenian Republic was an example of democracy, even though foreigners, women, and slaves were excluded from public life. This system lasted only about a century.
During the Middle Ages, there were no democratic states, but some cities (in Italy and Flanders) experimented with a form of democracy in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. After violent conflicts between the “fat people” and the “thin people” (wealthy burghers and workers), power was seized by an oligarchy of merchants and employers. In 1358, Étienne Marcel was killed in Paris; in 1482, the workers’ movement in Florence was suppressed.
In the fourteenth century, economic and spiritual crises in the West led to renewed debates about monarchical and feudal power. An egalitarian democratic ideal based on the Bible found expression in many uprisings in France, England, and Germany. Wat Tyler, a weaver from an urban area, proclaimed the equality of rights in the name of the common ancestry of Adam and Eve. However, all these movements were ultimately suppressed.
During the Renaissance, the political theories of Ancient Greece regained prominence, and the Calvinist Reformation took on a democratic character in Scotland, France, and the Netherlands. François Hotman, in Franco-Gallia (1573), envisioned a moderate monarchy based on popular consent. The idea that the people had the right to control power—and even to overthrow a tyrant—became widespread in the sixteenth century. However, this idea faced opposition from the administrative monarchies developing in France, Spain, and Austria, and from the doctrine of divine right that triumphed during the reign of Louis XIV.
In the seventeenth century, England became a testing ground for democratic theories through the revolutions it experienced. As a result, progressive political ideas began to emerge.
Democracy from a Theoretical Perspective
Freedom Is a Natural Right; the Balance of Powers Is the Ideal of Democracy, and the Parliamentary System Is an Effective Means of Achieving It
The English philosopher John Locke provided the first coherent definition of democracy in his work Two Treatises of Government (1690). He argued that freedom is a natural right, that a government is legitimate only if it is based on a contract with the people, and that legislative and executive powers must be separated. Shortly thereafter, Montesquieu endorsed the principle of the separation of powers in The Spirit of the Laws (De l’Esprit des Lois, 1748). This principle remains one of the foundations of Western democracy today.
In the eighteenth century, two very different currents emerged that shaped political thought. The first was a religious movement that appeared in England and America (William Penn, a Quaker, established an egalitarian democracy in Pennsylvania). The second was the secular and rationalist movement in France (The Social Contract [Du contrat social], Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762). In both currents, participation in government was considered a natural right of the people, and the balance between executive and legislative powers was to be achieved through virtue. For Rousseau, Saint-Just, and Robespierre, virtue was the key concept underlying democracy.
The parliamentary system, regarded by Enlightenment philosophers as the most complete expression of democracy, was described by Karl Marx as a “formal democracy.” Socialist theorists such as Lassalle, Fourier, and Proudhon showed little interest in bourgeois democracy, which excluded the proletariat from power. The dictatorship of the proletariat was expected to render the separation of powers unnecessary, as all power would belong to the people and be exercised by them.
Milestones (Timeline)
1215: The Magna Carta is proclaimed in England.
1382: The fall of popular government in Florence.
1573: François Hotman publishes Franco-Gallia.
1576: Jean Bodin publishes The Six Books of the Republic.
1649: King Charles I is executed in England.
1679: The Habeas Corpus Act is proclaimed in England.
1689: The English Bill of Rights is declared.
1690: John Locke publishes Two Treatises of Government.
1748: Montesquieu publishes The Spirit of the Laws.
1762: Rousseau publishes The Social Contract.
1776: The American Declaration of Independence.
1789: The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
1792: Temporary adoption of universal suffrage in France.
1794: Temporary abolition of slavery in French colonies.
1830: Uprising in France for freedom of the press against Charles X.
1832: Democratic reforms in England.
1835: Tocqueville publishes Democracy in America.
1848: Universal suffrage is adopted in France.
1865: Slavery is abolished in the United States.
1917: The Russian Revolutions (February and October).
1928: Women gain the right to vote in England.
1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.
Democracy and Freedom
Freedom and democracy are inseparable. Freedom is an essential component of democracy and includes freedoms such as freedom of thought and belief, freedom of movement, freedom to choose one’s place of residence, property rights, and protection against arbitrary arrest or punishment. Historically, these freedoms were achieved with great difficulty and over a long period of time, followed by the acquisition of political rights by the people.
